Blue Valley Farm Show Talent Show

The Blue Valley Farm Show will be holding its third Annual Talent Show on Wednesday, August 21 at 7:00 PM. They are looking for contestants to show off their talents, whether it is singing, dancing, playing an instrument, juggling, comedy, or whatever!! All ages are invited to participate. First prize is $200; Second prize is $100; and Third prize is $50. Applications can be picked up at Bray's Newstand in Bangor, Horn's Outdoor in Mt. Bethel, or by calling Tierney Jory at 610-428-4895 or emailing tjory2@aol.com. The applications must be mailed back by August 19th.

Source: Blue Valley Times August 13, 2002

Bangor High School students Paul Freeby and Andy Conroy won first place in the National Student Association of Radio Controlled Transportation competition in Denver, Colorado. The pair designed a vehicle styled like a dust buster that sucked up condiment cups and dropped them into an 18-inch high square receptacle.

Twelve-year-old Anthony DeSanctis of Bangor performed in a Shakespearean play in England. DeSanctis was among 39 students from the United States to make the trip abroad as student ambassadors. The group also toured England, Wales, and Ireland.

Lance Duffy was sworn in a borough council member of Pen Argyl, representing the borough's first ward.

Northampton County remained in a drought emergency at the third of four levels. This edict meant that certain uses of water were restricted such as watering grass and washing cars.

The Presbyterian Church of Bangor and Roseto was planning it annual Peach Festival.

The Northampton County Livestock sale was a big event at the 4-H Fait held in Bushkill Township this past weekend.

Mysterious ‘angel’ priest appears at Missouri car crash site

A mysterious Catholic priest showed up to the site of a car crash in Missouri on Sunday, with witnesses saying he offered a blessing before disappearing just as quickly as he arrived. But those at the site of the crash, including a number of rescue workers, are now at a loss after realizing no one knows the identity of the mysterious holy man who does not appear in any of the nearly 70 photographs taken at the scene of the accident. "I think it's a miracle," Raymond Reed, fire chief of New London, told USA Today. "I would say whether it was an angel that was sent to us in the form of a priest or a priest that became our angel, I don't know. Either way, I'm good with it." Reed and other rescue workers spent 45 minutes attempting to remove 19-year-old college student Katie Lentz from the wreckage, to no avail. While Lentz was conscious and communicating with authorities, they said her vital signs were quickly dropping. Rescue workers were left with little choice other than to turn the flipped car over. But such a move posed a potentially life-threatening injury to the young woman, who subsequently asked for someone to pray with her. And that’s when the mysterious priest reportedly appeared, saying “I will,” praying with Lentz and some of the rescue workers and sprinkling the young woman with oil. Reed and his team then turned the car over and freed Lentz, who was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital. But when Reed and other emergency workers tried to find the priest to thank him, he had already left the scene. "We all go back to thank this priest and he's gone," Reed said. The man was described as being in his late 50s and dressed in full priest’s garb. “Where did this guy come from?” added Lentz's friend Travis Wiseman . ”We're looking for the priest and so far, no one has seen him. Whether it was a priest as an angel or an actual angel, he was an angel to all those and to Katie.” "We're all local people from four different towns," Reed said, noting that police had put up barriers to the crash site for two miles in each direction. "We've only got one Catholic church out of three towns and it wasn't their priest."

Seagulls terrorize trapped retiree

Penny Freeman has spoke of her terror after a flock of seagulls targeted her every time she tried to leave her house. The 69-year-old was left facing the consequences after beginning to put food out in the garden for small birds, but as she lives in the coastal town of Bridlington in East Yorkshire, she was soon swamped by a large colony of ravenous seagulls. The problem then escalated when one of the eggs fell from the nest and the adults constantly guarded it. Ms Freeman told The Sun: "It was terrifying. I couldn't leave the house and I felt like a prisoner. The birds were very threatening - they're like lizards."

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Pink Planet Baffles NASA, Scientists

At first glance, NASA's latest find might resemble a classic piece of bubble gum, but the recently discovered planet, GJ 504b, is much too large to roll out of a machine after a quarter and a twist. How large is it? NASA scientists say it's four times the mass of Jupiter. The glimmering pink sphere is so massive that it's the lowest-mass planet orbiting a star like the sun ever detected using direct imaging technology. But size is just one component of GJ 504b's existence that has NASA scientists in awe; GJ 504b also shatters current conceptions of how large planets form. The prevailing theory, known as the core-accretion model, states that Jupiter-like planets form after a series of collisions between debris create a mass with a gravitational pull strong enough to rapidly attract surrounding gas-rich debris, molding the accumulation of debris into a crude planetary form. But one stipulation of the theory is that it only applies to planets orbiting up to 30 astronomical units (AU) from their sun -- 1 AU is equivalent to Earth's distance from the sun. GJ 504b orbits its star at a distance of 43.5 AU, nearly nine times the distance Jupiter orbits our sun. That discovery has sent scientists scrambling for answers on how GJ 504b could take form. "This is among the hardest planets to explain in a traditional planet-formation framework," Markus Janson, a member of the team that discovered GJ 504b, said in a NASA press release. "Its discovery implies that we need to seriously consider alternative formation theories, or perhaps to reassess some of the basic assumptions in the core-accretion theory." The relative youth of the planet and its solar system are also of interest to NASA, according to Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team. In fact, according to McElwain, the planet's age is directly responsible for that odd fuchsia hue. "If we could travel to this giant planet, we would see a world still glowing from the heat of its formation with a color reminiscent of a dark cherry blossom, a dull magenta," McElwain said. "Our near-infrared camera reveals that its color is much more blue than other imaged planets, which may indicate that its atmosphere has fewer clouds." McElwain said that GJ 504b's sun is just 160 million years old, indicating that the solar system, and by extension GJ 504b, is still undergoing changes. Studying these changes may provide more insight into planetary formation, as well as the future of our own solar system. "Our sun is about halfway through its energy-producing life, but GJ 504 is only one-thirtieth its age," added McElwain. "Studying these systems is a little like seeing our own planetary system in its youth."